Visitors to Canada will soon require an electronic travel authorisation

Readers who travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program will no doubt be familiar with the requirement for an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization).

From March 1, 2016 Canada will be introducing a similar requirement for foreign nationals arriving by air and you’ll need to have an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) before arriving in Canada.

As of August 1, 2015 you can apply for an ETA online in a few minutes. The fee is CAD$7 and can be paid by credit card. Your ETA will be valid for 5 years or when your passport expires - whichever happens sooner.

I plan on visiting Canada soon so decided to apply for the ETA so it was out of the way. The application took about 5 minutes and I received an email approval about 4 minutes after payment was made.

The application asked a few standard questions including name, passport details, address, occupation and a few other questions about if I had a criminal record.

Once the application was complete I was asked for my payment details and that was it.

For more information and to apply you can go to http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/eta.asp or alternatively watch the video below.